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Being in Deus Lawrence had learned to carry a portion of his surgical equipment around with him even off island, here it would come in handy.

To anyone else it would have seemed a bizarre, unhealthy request to be immediately rejected but to Lawrence it was completely acceptable. Marking the other man was something intimate and enjoyable and a delight to be allowed to do.

The horse riding vacation was lovely and much of the tension normally in Lawrs shoulders had fallen away as if it had never been there.

Kissing Melvin back just as deeply he shook his head. "Nothing at all. Lets get to it, before your shield comes back."

He gestured at a chair he'd draped in bin bags to absorb any blood. "Not about to back out are you now? Second thoughts?"

"It's fine." Lawrence said. "I've done it on a lot worse, if you wriggle, I am very capable of holding you. But yes for best results keep it still."

Pulling the side table he'd laid out his crude little toolkit on, he straddled Melvin's lap. "I'd have preferred doing this somewhere I wouldn't need to clean up the blood, though hopefully there isn't too much, it should all be nice and superficial. Just..lasting."

"I'm never nervous." he said. "And I don't have second thoughts."

He extended his hand. "Glove." he said, gesturing to the box, he was used to relying on Melvin to help him get his sterile gloves on. "You know." he said, "I've always resented that mark on your neck. Not because it is part of you, I enjoy all of you, but because it is such a source of discomfort for you. Discomfort and embarrassment. You aren't filthy. I will fix it. I'll remove it."

He could feel his thoughts spiralling out, out and out. He let them. He let himself think about his position, to bask in it, inches from arteries and veins which didn't have a shield on them, said shield deliberately worn away by their owner. If he chose he could drive the pristine scalpel in and he'd be like god and Saliva couldn't do anything about it.

Except he chose not to. Choice. It was novel, it was a power unto itself. Melvin was a loyal follower, friend, partner, worshipper, priest and this was his reward. It was easy, it was like writing in his books, writing music. He remembered how it had felt with America and Horace.

He brought the blade up to flesh, pressing it to Melvin's neck with cold, steady strokes, definite and intent, his blue eyes fixed on the task at hand, the rest of the world irrelevant and ignored. If he moved, even accidentally in response to pain, he found himself pinned in place with Butch summoned in Lawrence's bad hand, splayed across his chest. Wriggling was not an option and he only relented when he was happy with his handiwork, a bloody wing carefully carved across the twisting swirls.

Melvin had come back every time, every time he'd been kicked like a dog or brought to his knees. This was what he'd earned. They all earned it in time, something as impermanent as they were, something that would remember him even when they left, even when it was over.

It was pain, it was beauty and it was a statement.

"This part." he said. "Will hurt the most." He poured an iodine mixture liberally onto a thick cotton pad and pressed it to the injury, all but searing it onto his skin.

Lawrence only really came out of his hyperfocused mode when he was sure that he was done, seeming only to pull back into the world when the iodine was pressed to the injury.

"There." he said gently. "It was just a mark, just someone else trying to stake a claim that they never had a right to."

He absently released the pressure he'd been putting on the other man with his claw. "You need to keep it agitated with the iodine for a bit, to make sure that Saliva can't heal it up as rapidly as she would normally. You want it to endure."

With an absent sort of curiosity, he licked a fleck of blood from his talon. "Are you all right?"

Lawrence smiled gently. "You aren't being stupid." he said. "You are fine, you came to no harm, and you've conquered something that should never have held sway over you in the first place. You are cleansed." He twisted the glove off by hooking his fingers under the edge of it and dropped it into the small bin he'd brought over, then he ran his spotless hand across Melvin's hair. "It will hurt, and it will need to continue to hurt if you want it to stay, but most of the things that matter are painful."

There was something relaxed and - for Lawrence - almost vulnerable about the thin man.

"Nothing. Well. I mean, nothing other than what I was doing and you. I was thinking about the curve of your neck, the colour of your skin, the warmth of your blood, your heartbeat, everything that made you you. It's like when I play music, nothing else at all around me matters, everything is focused down to a single point, a single point where there is no space for troubles, no room for doubts, a singular note where the world becomes abstract."

He sighed in a sort of satisfaction. "It is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world, thank you for letting me experience it. I don't get to very much anymore, since I lost my hand."

"I am glad you trust me enough to let me do this. It's.. I won't deny it's not dangerous." He took a shallow, shivery breath. "Sometimes, when I'm in that focused place I get carried away, there are these thoughts that drift in, thoughts of perfection, of divinity and being a god that take over and sometimes I can't stop. With Horace I couldn't stop. I would have kept coming back to him, time and time again, taking him apart bit by bit until I could put him in the ocean. It was like having a drug I could revisit to get that fix, that feeling, over and over and over."

He looked at the wall behind the other man distantly. "Like I said, the world stops mattering, it is like the fact it is a person stops mattering too, like I can just switch it off and the person under my knife is just meat, like carving a ham for a meal, trimming a chicken or deboning a fish. It becomes an activity rather than a connection. I didn't let that happen this time, I had to keep hold of your heartbeat, your smell, the fact it was you. A life without you in it was enough to make me stop. That is different for me. I was afraid I wouldn't stop, I was thinking about it all day. But I did."

He followed Melvin's gaze and cleared his throat. "I.. that always happens. I find the control, the pain, the exactness..erotic I suppose. It is an intense experience, close to sex, sometimes better, depending on what sex one refers to. It is why it can be so very very addictive."

He placed a kiss on Melvin's forehead. "That feeling you get, in the heat of intimacy where you know you couldn't stop if you wanted to, that it's so good and its so close that you must, absolutely must reach that end point. It is that, but with someone's life fading away as the climax, or failing that intense intense pain."

"I /choose/ not to do it. Because love is a choice."

"No, it's just as satisfying, if not moreso because I still have you." he said breathlessly after the kiss. "And it's fine, surgery is work, it is a set task, like writing a sheet of music, I begin and I end, it is when there is no start and end point I find myself released and unpredictable."

"I would love to see your neck more." he said. "I think seeing the scar on you would be wonderfully distracting."

He let the mention of Rodney go, smart enough to know when it wasn't wanted. He hadn't even realised he was repeating something he'd been taught rather than something he'd learned.

"All right, let's tidy. Got to tidy you first though so this place doesn't end up looking like a crime scene." He retrieved some warm soapy water and carefully cleaned the blood from around the edge of the injury, dabbing it dry with a towel.

"Lets then." he said, and took Melvin's hand to help him to his feet, leading him into the bathroom. "Sit on the toilet and I'll run it, don't over exert yourself." He smiled. "You know, whenever my shield gets weakened or broken my back pain comes back. I always feel so old."

"I'm proud of you though." he said, running the hot water and moving back to shrug off his own shirt. "It makes me very pleased to see you more confident in yourself and facing up to your fears."